Crash - Film review

There are films that stay in your mind and you never get tired of watching them. Their message moves you and after watching them you feel that you have experienced something unusual. Something that touched your heart and left you changed. It seems to me that Crash is exactly one of such films.

The title of this film is best explained by one of the main characters, right in the first scenes of the film. His sad but wise words seem to sum up the following events:

Any real city, you walk, you’re bumped, brush past people. In LA no one touches you... We’re always behind metal and glass. Think we miss that touch so much, we crush into each other just to feel something.

It is amazing how well the director, Paul Haggis, managed to present how the life of one person can influence the lives of the people around. The main characters seem to have forgotten about it. They live in a bubble, surrounded by the noises of the multicultural metropolis. It seems to them their actions have no meaning and even though there are thousands of people around them, they feel lonely.

However, even if they do not realise it, their life paths are constantly crossing and they crash into each other almost every day. Sometimes the power of this collision is so great that it makes them think about the others and they wake up as if from a dream. Other time they wish they could confront the others, contact them, express their emotions – but they are unable to do it because they live behind metal and glass.

What can a Mexican worker and the wife of a district attorney have in common? What joins two young car thieves with a black film director? And what do they all have to do with the murder of a young black boy? Apparently nothing. But everything is hidden deep inside the characters’ hearts: hatred, racial discrimination, prejudices, and fear. These emotions control the lives of the Los Angeles citizens and distance them from other people.

This powerful story has everything a great film should have: talented director, famous actors such as Sandra Bullock or Terrence Howard and wonderful, moving music. Most importantly however the film has a message: it asks universal questions and does not look for easy answers. It makes you think.